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Texas' patient care law at hub of Houston dispute

July 10, 2006

Houston Chronicle (Internet / Print) 07/09/06 http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4032449.html Texas' controversial futile care law is at the center of a drama at Memorial Hermann Hospital involving a patient who suffered brain damage after her breathing tube became disconnected. Doctors invoked the law, which allows hospitals to remove life support in cases deemed medically futile, two weeks later, after deciding 29-year-old Kalilah Roberson-Reese was in a vegetative state. Dr. William Winslade, an ethicist at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, said the case "raises questions about how quickly these decisions should be made in the face of potential litigation." Lawyers are studying Roberson-Reese's medical charts at her mother's request to determine whether to file a malpractice lawsuit.